It's looking increasingly like a big win for Obama tonight and there are a lot of people who'll be watching with genuine unease.
The reichwing open mouth radio maggots have had a good time under the Reagan Revolution, especially during the Bush Darkness. It wasn't just popular ignorance, fear and hatred that was feeding them, it was the outstretched hand of the Republican establishment that did whatever it could to help out. Now they're watching that low populism wither and a tide change in Washington can only spell further trouble ahead.
Audience = ratings = sponsors' money. That's the bible of commercial broadcasting. I know firsthand, I've been there, done that. Now, when that advertising money starts to head elsewhere, commercial broadcasting does what it does best - it turns whore. Sort of like how Rupert Murdoch, Vlad the Impaler of arch-conservative, commercial broadcasting, sewed on a big Red Star when he wanted to expand into the Chinese market. Here's the giveaway - he didn't even flinch.
The way the change arrives is with the steady departure of the "stars" with the poorest ratings. Rush will probably be around for a few years yet, at least until his shrinking wallet overcomes his inflated ego and he retires. Others won't depart as gracefully. They'll quietly disappear, usually in conjunction with a format change. If you're driving through the states you might soon be hearing a lot more music and a lot less rabid rhetoric.
I'm guessing but I think you'll see the diehards coalesce around - wait for it - Sarah Palin. She'll be the poster girl of a "behind the lines" Republican guerrilla movement in the south. Down Dixie way they're steeped in that sort of thing. She may be astonishingly ignorant of her country and its constitution but she is someone on whom they can pin their support, someone highly visible and that's what they'll need. You can imagine the narrative now. Sarah Palin didn't sell out the Republican Party, John McCain did. No, it wasn't Bush's fault or Cheney's or the neo-conservative lunatics who held sway in Washington these past eight years. It was John McCain. He sold out the party.
I'm pretty sure there'll be a Palinista movement but I think it will be small, weak. There won't be a lot of advertising revenue available for it so it will have to depend on wealthy Republican benefactors and they, too, keep an eye on the thickness of their wallets.
And then there's Fox News, Rupert Murdoch's flag ship. That channel could become fun to watch - every now and then. O'Reilly and Hannity may be in for a little commercial comeuppance. There may not be a lot of call for blowhard propagandists and dissemblers. That's the problem when your career is dependent on a guy who looks up every morning to see which way the wind's blowing.
Oh well, at least Rush knows where he can lay into an endless supply of Oxycontin.
The reichwing open mouth radio maggots have had a good time under the Reagan Revolution, especially during the Bush Darkness. It wasn't just popular ignorance, fear and hatred that was feeding them, it was the outstretched hand of the Republican establishment that did whatever it could to help out. Now they're watching that low populism wither and a tide change in Washington can only spell further trouble ahead.
Audience = ratings = sponsors' money. That's the bible of commercial broadcasting. I know firsthand, I've been there, done that. Now, when that advertising money starts to head elsewhere, commercial broadcasting does what it does best - it turns whore. Sort of like how Rupert Murdoch, Vlad the Impaler of arch-conservative, commercial broadcasting, sewed on a big Red Star when he wanted to expand into the Chinese market. Here's the giveaway - he didn't even flinch.
The way the change arrives is with the steady departure of the "stars" with the poorest ratings. Rush will probably be around for a few years yet, at least until his shrinking wallet overcomes his inflated ego and he retires. Others won't depart as gracefully. They'll quietly disappear, usually in conjunction with a format change. If you're driving through the states you might soon be hearing a lot more music and a lot less rabid rhetoric.
I'm guessing but I think you'll see the diehards coalesce around - wait for it - Sarah Palin. She'll be the poster girl of a "behind the lines" Republican guerrilla movement in the south. Down Dixie way they're steeped in that sort of thing. She may be astonishingly ignorant of her country and its constitution but she is someone on whom they can pin their support, someone highly visible and that's what they'll need. You can imagine the narrative now. Sarah Palin didn't sell out the Republican Party, John McCain did. No, it wasn't Bush's fault or Cheney's or the neo-conservative lunatics who held sway in Washington these past eight years. It was John McCain. He sold out the party.
I'm pretty sure there'll be a Palinista movement but I think it will be small, weak. There won't be a lot of advertising revenue available for it so it will have to depend on wealthy Republican benefactors and they, too, keep an eye on the thickness of their wallets.
And then there's Fox News, Rupert Murdoch's flag ship. That channel could become fun to watch - every now and then. O'Reilly and Hannity may be in for a little commercial comeuppance. There may not be a lot of call for blowhard propagandists and dissemblers. That's the problem when your career is dependent on a guy who looks up every morning to see which way the wind's blowing.
Oh well, at least Rush knows where he can lay into an endless supply of Oxycontin.
